Suicide Queens
by V-San
Summary: It's the first time anyone in Sakurashin has used both the words 'interesting' and 'monster' to refer to her. She likes it. (Dark!Hoshi no Umi AU, KotohaxZakuro, character deaths)


**Suicide Queens**

"The one person here who gives of the most interesting vibe," Zakuro chuckles, "is _you_."

There's blood roaring in Kotoha's ears even as lightning drips from her tongue, humming, waiting to strike. Hime stands by her side, asks for a weapon, but one never comes, the Kotodama user too caught up in the sneer, the power, _the control_ before her.

Half-Youkai powers were wild, primal even. This she had struggled with first-hand, that sweet whisper in her head every day to ruin the lands and blot the skies. Because being a Kotodama user meant mastering the impossible and making it her bitch. The voice had a particular taste for fire; nurtured from conception. Often her mouth felt blisteringly hot, even as she called on simple tools, barely holding in desperate fits of coughing as smoke threatens to tumble from her lungs.

She had expected the same rawness from Zakuro on learning that she too was a half-Youkai, the same sense of being torn in half by power and fear. But the voodoo Zakuro had instead spread so easily from her fingers was beyond all that she had expected.

Sweat begins to trickle down her back, her forehead, as both girls observe the other, tension and curiosity coiled thick in the air. Beside her, Kotoha can feel Hime's growing confusion at the charged silence between herself and the necromancer, and inside her head she scoffs darkly. Of course Hime wouldn't understand. She was never _meant_ to, this went beyond what a pure human or a demon could even hope to comprehend.

Refusing to resist the pull, she steps forward, a thrill rising in her chest as Zakuro does the same. One step turning into two as the pair slowly circle each other, neither set of eyes ceasing their rapid movements over the other girl. Kotoha imagines that if she were a great cat…a tiger perhaps, she would have a wildly flicking tail, swiping through the air, painting her intrigue to the sky. The thought made her flex her fingers, as though they were indeed claws, and she some wild beast.

The circle draws them in, tighter, and Kotoha can feel the corruption spilling from Zakuro, scarring the space around them. Sparks fly in sympathy from her lips as she breathes deeply, the decay tracing momentarily over her tongue before it crackles away. Their final pass brings them close enough to touch, heat rolling from both of their bodies. She can smell the pure lust in the air, heavy between them, and she fancies that perhaps she is a beast.

No…

"Of all the people here," the deep voice pours through Kotoha's ears, every word a drug as she listens, eyes never once leaving the necromancer's own, "you're by far the one that most smells…of blood."

She feels she should be horrified…the knowledge of the fire she'd caused…the lives lost as she fell; rampaging through the town with the flames and venom in her mouth, was her greatest shame. Yet a pride bubbled through her as the necromancer stated her crimes, a dark grin throughout her soul, that this master of the dead found pleasure in what destruction she had achieved.

"You're just like me, a monster."

"A monster," she whispers to herself, "I'm…a monster."

Hot steel melts out as she talks, a lance heavy in her hands. She regards it carelessly; twirling it as her hands unconsciously tests the weapon's balance. The ground beneath Zakuro's feet continues to rot, the riverbank becoming putrid with decay and her own desire rises up to meet the display of dominance, her tongue a forge of destruction. Blades and bullets, engines and aircraft one after the other, her head and her throat chanting as one as she lets the bloodlust finally spill out before her.

Both, as one, pause in their motions. They can each feel the power flowing between them, the link an unlit fuse as undead flesh examines the mass of steel and pain she has created.

"S-so that's how it is," her breath comes out in rough gasps and she shivers, aware of Zakuro's cold fingers slipping under the fabric of her sailor uniform. The chill stinging across her skin.

"That's how it is…if you let it."

"Kotoha!"

She turns as Hime's shriek cuts the air between them, shrill and unwelcoming. The girl stands rooted and Kotoha can feel the fear pouring off her as clearly as she can feel the heat of Zakuro's desire. Her face is a wall of determination, but never before have the cracks that expose the child beneath been so obvious…or perhaps she was now just looking for the first time? Sweat from a quivering lip, uncertain eyes, clenched knuckles on her rotting lacrosse stick….

Kotoha _likes_ this.

Against the diminished protests drowned out by the purring in her skull, a perverse laugh falls from her lips, she's so used to seeing Hime's confidence and unwavering belief in herself that it's almost amusing to see it breaking away under the weight of the control she's witnessed here. Hime's mettle was something she'd secretly looked up to, the complete dominance of her own mind and body, but in the face of all this….she felt let-down as that power and resolve crumbled.

Behind her, Zakuro presses her body heavily against Kotoha's, her hand sliding across her chest to hold her close, finally resting at her collarbone. Flush together, she can feel the passion rolling off the woman behind her, even as her skin grows numb and chilled beneath her rot-filled fingers.

She sneers once, unsure if it was at the girl before her, or the girl she had once been, and regards the heavy metal of the lance still gripped in her left hand, not quite forgotten. Raising her eyes back to Hime, she points the tip forwards decisively, thrilling at the while pallor the mayor has taken on.

Hime's eyes widen and her mouth begins to form a word her tongue never gets the chance to push out, as an impure fist of rotted plants and earth rises up behind her and slams her painfully aside. Behind them, Kotoha hears the desperate pounding of feet along the grass. She shrugs Zakuro's hand from her body; clearing a distance between them and whipping the lance around harshly in her hands before her head even has time to turn. It stings through the air before Akina has time to dodge fully, driving firmly through his shoulder. His scream of pain drowned out by the roar of decay rising up behind him, dead pincers of earth crushing Kyousuke between them before he could take another step.

Sneering callously, Zakuro spreads her fingers and makes a sharp slashing motion with her hands, death pouring from her body. Slicing across the ground, it grips tightly to the injured teens. Without a word, Zakuro drags them down as they scream, burying them beneath the rotted earth.

Then all is quiet.

Only the slight lapping at the riverbank can be heard as Kotoha glances at the dark patches of earth where the people she had once considered closer than family had been swallowed up. She imagines them being dragged deeper into the soil, the crush of dirt and the lack of oxygen pulverizing even their toughened bodies until the decay deposits their battered husks at the lowest point they can find. Her heart beats slowly in her chest and for a second she is curious at the idea that it should be racing, that her mind should be filled with panic and horror and guilt. All there is instead is a slick satisfaction, and she smirks at her errant thoughts, turning to Zakuro once more.

She finds her lips crushed instantly by the necromancer's, and she moans at their closeness, her body tingling with approval and desire as she kisses back, roughly. Her hands clutching harshly at Zakuro's body as they both wrestle for dominance, nails dragging cruelly across her skin. The distant screech of tires pulls them apart, a promise of later breathed between them.

"I hate an audience," Zakuro sighs, eyeing devilishly the figures disembarking from the van up on the highway. Kotoha watches her stride forwards, then stop. She turns back, hand outstretched.

"Shall we?"

She takes the hand unflinchingly, eyes shining in the darkness.

* * *

 _A.N. I've been debating with myself for a good long while on whether to publish this honestly, for some reason I always felt hesitant to do so and I've been editing this for quite some time now as an excuse. But I figure, hey, even if it's not to many people's tastes, maybe someone out there will enjoy it. There's so little fan content for YQ, I guess putting more stuff out there can only be a good thing._

 _Hope you liked it~_


End file.
